by C A Gleason
Perry believed Jonah to be suffering, and Jonah would allow him to think that way. He’d been in much worse places than riding in the back of a pickup truck to a battle with an unforeseen outcome. Given everything he’d been through, his training, but also simple math, all the men in the back of this truck would likely die before Jonah would.
“So how many people have you all murdered?” Jonah said.
“The Draw kills them,” Frox said.
“What’s the difference?”
Perry watched Frox shake his head slowly. Perry must have realized Jonah was only trying to provoke them.
“We’re still here, right?” Frox said. “Still alive.”
“So am I. But I haven’t had to kill my fellow man.”
“Bullshit,” Perry said.
At least not since the war and up until a few days ago. Jonah ignored him. “Better others than your own, huh? Slaughter good people who mean nothing to you? It’s a wonder any of you idiots are still alive.”
Perry leaned forward. “Shut your—”
“Don’t let him get to you,” Frox said to Perry.
“I’m about to put a gag in his mouth.”
“You untied me. I’d just take it out,” Jonah said.
“I mean after I tie you back up again!”
Jonah rolled his eyes. “Why not make a stand, you fucking pussies? Everybody has to fight in this day and age. Put them all down and be done with it.”
Everyone in the back of the pickup truck scoffed at the same time. Jonah was OK with saying some things that some might deem crazy or even ridiculous. Let them wonder about his mental state all they wanted. It was just plain true that hardly anyone went out of their way or even wanted to converse with a crazy person. Jonah could finally see well enough, but he couldn’t tell where they were going.
With endless forest and snow-covered peaks in the distance, it was difficult to recognize the territory unless he’d been there, which he hadn’t. They were on a main road of sorts, and the trees occasionally broke up on his left and right to reveal hills in the distance. If they were headed somewhere Molters could be fought, where a battle could be controlled, it would likely be an open landscape.
Perry was staring down at Jonah as if he were a naïve child. “You’re like one of those old-timers who refuses to leave somewhere that’s dangerous even though deep down they know they’re going to die if they stay.”
“You know, it would be a lot easier if you said things that made sense,” Jonah said, and one of the men near Perry snickered.
“Ever wonder why these mountains aren’t overrun? Because we’ve been holding them off for years. We’ve been saving your ass, wherever the hell you’ve been hiding like a coward.”
Jonah felt his cheeks flush and anger boil in his belly, but he didn’t take the bait. He had been expecting Perry to antagonize him in return. Talking shit was almost always a two-way street. Knowing that still couldn’t diminish how much he wanted to throw fists.
“We fight them every day. You’ve been drafting us, man.” Perry thumbed at his chest. “We’ve kept Molters off your back.”
“I’ve killed quite a few.”
“Well, every once in a while, some get through our defenses.”
“You’re forgetting Behemoths and how they’re born.”
“Easy to spot if you know what you’re looking for.”
“Easy? Hardly.”
“For us, anyway. We got quite a few terrific marksmen among us.”
“If you’re being overwhelmed by them, why stay?”
“We haven’t. We’ve been on the move.”
“But how long have you been here?”
Perry was about to answer but looked to Frox instead. Jonah didn’t see it, but Frox must have shaken his head.
“Can’t count, huh?” Jonah said. “Shocker.”
“Fuck off,” Perry growled.
“Jonah, you’ve been secluded for too long,” Frox said. “Where can we go? What can we really do differently? Best thing for us is to stick with what we know how to do and what we know works. Fortify and stand our ground.”
“What’s the endgame?” Jonah said.
“That all of them pass us by. Someday. Then we move somewhere else.”
Not likely, Jonah thought. The only way to win this war was as he’d said, to put them all down, but he wasn’t about to argue with men who didn’t care if he lived or died. Though he knew they were his enemy, what Frox and Perry were telling him did make sense. The cabin had been relatively peaceful, other than the Behemoth cocoons he was forced to destroy because they grew in the area or the occasional Molters that ventured into his controlled territory. Or the ones that just happened to be waiting underground in a cave. Evil fuckers.
“What happens to the Draw?” Jonah said.
“A loaded gun in a closet,” Frox said. “Just in case.”
Jonah nodded. “I’m willing to negotiate now.”
The men around him gave dramatic reactions with snickering, sneers, and mocking or just straight out profanity under their breath.
“See?” Perry said to Frox. “Told you he’d crack.” Frox didn’t react. “I’ll tell you this, Jonah. Whatever supplies you got belong to us now.”
“Only if you let me go.”
“Tell us where it all is so we can put it to use,” Frox said.
“Once you release me, I’ll leave you a map.”
“You’re lying,” Perry said.
“I promise you I’m not. I give you my word.” Jonah was technically telling the truth, but the map he’d give them would be the fake one hidden under the seat of Henry’s truck, leading to only empty tarps buried beneath the marked spots. “I’ll even go with whoever you send so it can be verified. Then I’ll disappear, and none of you will ever see me again. I’ll just leave and go mind my own business somewhere.”
“Crazy fuck,” Perry said rhetorically. “Where is it?”
“Wouldn’t be all of it if he’s that easy to convince,” one of them said.
Easy, huh? But Jonah wasn’t about to plead his case or argue with anyone other than Frox or Perry.
“That’s actually a good point,” Perry said. “Give us your map and tell us where all your supplies are; otherwise, it’s going to be wasted. All of us know how long it takes to gather supplies and weapons. It will have been for nothing. I’m sure even you don’t want that.”
Perry waited, but Jonah was done talking. He’d set his terms, and it was up to them to follow through or not. Either that or he was going to kill as many of them as possible and escape. They hadn’t tied him up again.
Perry harrumphed. “You think you’re better than us, don’t you? Let me explain something to you—you’re just like the rest of us. And like anyone, in one way or another, you can be stripped to the bone.”
CHAPTER 13
They arrived at a sprawling golden field splashed with snow, and hills stretched beyond as far as the eye could see. It was a sea of land, and Jonah was sure his infinity view was the result of day coming to an end, the limits of vision capped where darkness already reached. Though he’d never been there, he recognized it as ground used for the German Army’s artillery training.
There were trenches dug into the terrain, far enough away from the firing line to be used effectively and similar to another war long ago in another century. The firing line itself was an impressive defensive position, and Jonah had no doubt he would eventually witness its offensive capabilities. And Jonah thought he had acquired a lot of weapons.
Aside from howitzers capable of firing artillery, there were dozens of towers, makeshift builds made of wood that looked to be thirty feet in the air, and manned machine guns on top of every one of them. Between the towers, there were walls made of sharpened trees similar to the ones at Fort Perry although not as high.
Jonah suspected Fort Perry had been built afterward and applied the lessons learned here. It was obvious why the position worked; it looked to be a constant, we
ll-armed assault with a steady rotation of people armed to the teeth, and Molters couldn’t attack at all times. They also needed rest.
Armed men and women walked on the ground as well and aimed where the threats would soon reveal themselves. No weapons were firing, which meant daylight still held some advantages. There were breaks on this battlefield during the war, which meant the offensive not only worked well but was also reliable. It drew the Molters in, and these people killed them. Molters mostly showed up at night because they preferred to hunt in darkness, were driven to hide among the shadows, instinctually, as many predators did. It meant they had keener eyesight than whoever they were molted from.
A training ground also meant there was a military base nearby, one Jonah had never been to, but as much as he had sifted through others the last few years, he was confident he could locate wherever it was based on the proximity of the training ground and get what he needed if he had to. But that was only if it hadn’t been cleaned out already. Most likely, it had been looted, but he always had a knack for finding supplies of value no matter how small or insignificant. Like chem lights.
If he survived this, he might actually use all those chem lights—meant to see in the dark—and wave them around for a dance party with frenetic music, like at the club in Oberstein before the Molting, in celebration. He would bet both Doreen and Heike would be up for some serious wiggling once he returned to them.
Then Jonah saw something that altered his evolving plan to party and realized that escaping with his life should remain his primary, immediate goal and the only step toward a world with him in it. There were cells, but instead of people inside them, which was what he had expected, there were Molters. He’d already known they were an aspect of the Draw, but there was another layer to it that meant time for him was shorter than he had planned. All Jonah’s posturing had bought him some time, but it was quickly running out.
Jonah wondered whether the Molters were trapped and then put inside, or people had been forced in while normal and then molted. If it was the latter, that gave him just a little more time, but it would mean they intended for him to molt. He’d killed many Infectors before and would do so again, but if they were going to put him inside one of the cells with a Molter already inside . . .
Not good.
Squinting, he couldn’t tell if the beastly occupants were alive or dead because they weren’t moving. Once again, it occurred to him that he might need glasses. Might be a little late for that, though. It was strange to see Molters during daylight hours, especially while they were caged. It was similar to seeing a lion pacing the inside of an enclosure at a zoo. Even if the Molters were immobile, it was unnatural. They were probably resting, waiting to howl until the rest of them arrived.
From the distance, it looked as if they were in the hibernation stasis he’d seen them in before, which meant they probably weren’t being fed. He couldn’t tell if they were the old or the new strain. If it was one of the new ones, then that was a huge mistake. Once they fed enough, the Infector bombs would erupt from the inside and negate their purpose in the cell, and the result would be a bunch of Infectors. That scenario would be totally out of control. But Frox and his gunners probably already knew that, so the Molters were all probably the original strain.
For Molters, being in a cell or being unable to hunt down prey because a territory was without it were probably the same; they couldn’t feed, so they simply waited with little movement until something came along they could sink their teeth into. Jonah hoped he wasn’t about to be food for any of them, but the direction the truck was headed chilled his blood, and for the first time in a long time, he was actually afraid. If he didn’t act soon, everything he’d done, all his efforts, really would have been for nothing.
In a way he understood why they perpetuated the Draw; a caged man attracted Molters, and a caged Molter attracted others of its kind—naturally drawn to one another—but then armed men killed them as they funneled together from a distance. Their system might also attract Behemoths since a well-fed Molter could turn into a cocoon for them to drink, but no one had mentioned that.
Maybe Frox was right, that the Draw did work, that it did save lives, but honestly, Jonah didn’t care. Jonah’s people were all that mattered to him, and he would do whatever he had to do to return to them to keep them safe. That included killing anyone or anything that got in his way. Jonah just wished his captors would somehow understand his skill set without him having to explain—it wasn’t as if they would believe anything he said or care anymore anyway—and hadn’t already dismissed him as Molter food.
The truck slowed to a stop and then jostled as Perry hopped out of the truck bed. He aimed his German revolver at Jonah. “Come on.” As Jonah scooted himself forward, Perry pointed the barrel at an empty cell with a welcoming open door. “There.”
Jonah hadn’t seen the empty one. He’d only seen the ones with Molters inside them, but he felt himself relax. At least he wasn’t going to be killed immediately. “We actually going through with this?”
“It’s just a holding cell until we decide how to use you best.”
Jonah searched for Frox, but he was already marching toward the firing line, giving orders to those who surrounded him. “Look,” Jonah said to Perry, “I’m still willing to negotiate—”
“No more negotiating. No more deals. Your contribution to the Draw is appreciated. Get inside.”
“I’m not going to run again, man. You can trust me. I understand my fate.”
Perry yanked a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed the cut on his ear. “Would you trust you?” He cocked the hammer of the revolver dangling at his side. “Get in.”
Jonah went inside the cell, and Perry closed the door behind him. Then Perry uncocked the hammer and shoved the weapon in its holster. He produced a few zip ties and secured the door himself. “Don’t get any ideas. You’ll have guns on you the whole time.”
Jonah inspected his new residence. It looked as if there had been another person in there before him. The ground was concave as if someone had slept there. Probably died there too.
Someone like Jonah, with everything he had to live for, plus all his combat experience and proficiency in handling weapons, work ethic, willingness to live, to survive . . . and to die like this?
“Perry,” Jonah said, causing Perry to turn from resuming his business with his fellow men. “Where’s the ship?”
Perry’s large eyebrows knit together. “Seriously, man?”
“When all of you are dead and I’m still alive, I want a way to escape this country.”
Perry laughed, and it sounded a bit forced, and then he shook his head. “You never give up.”
“Let me fight! I’ll even challenge you to make that happen. You and me, one on one. If you win—”
“I would.”
“Then you can return me to this prison. But . . . if I beat your ass, you give me a gun with plenty of ammo and let me give it a go. Let me kill them until I die or until morning.”
Perry squinted at him, and it seemed as if he were actually contemplating the challenge.
“What makes more sense?” Jonah said. “Leaving me in here to molt or rot or allowing me to help you kill as many of them as possible?”
“Already told you, man. You’re part of the Draw.”
“I know you’ll need to discuss it with Frox,” Jonah said, “but I imagine the Draw is for those who . . . who can’t do what I can do.”
“And what would that be?”
“Turn me loose and see. You won’t be disappointed.”
A large grin spread beneath the salt-and-pepper beard. “I would enjoy throwing hands with you, regardless of who won. I really would.”
“I’m not going to shut up until you man up.”
Perry slowly reapproached the cell. “Except I know you’re lying, and you’ll just try to escape again. Probably kill some of our people, more than you have already, or even me. You’ll say anything to get out of there
. But I understand. I would do the same.”
“Faced with life or death, I choose—”
“You don’t have any more choices, and I take orders. I still have choices, and I’ve chosen to take orders. The way we do things keeps the rest of us safe. I believe you, what you say, that you’re a fighter, but regardless of your abilities, and I know it’s fucked up, but the new guy is always the weakest link.”
“That’s probably why you’re up against it now.”
It was dark when a cluster of men forced someone to walk against their will toward the cell Jonah was in. The stranger was wearing a straitjacket. Except the man was thrashing and snarling, and as the group drew closer, Jonah realized it wasn’t a man at all. It was being held upright and not allowed to hunch as they naturally did.
They must have known the man was going to molt, so they’d put a straitjacket on him. It would be pretty obvious, especially if someone had seen an Infector bite him—or if one was put on him deliberately—but another way to know such a thing was if someone didn’t wake up for a few days, and their skin turned blue. Jonah couldn’t imagine it being easy to trap a Molter—they were so wild—or it being still long enough to put a straitjacket on it. Whether the molt was planned or an accident didn’t matter. They were using it for the Draw.
After all this, after all I’ve been through, my life is going to end as a sacrifice?
The biggest problem was Jonah had no weapons on him, nor did he have any leverage with anybody to get his hands on one. Especially now. His negotiating skills had been exhausted. They’d expired. Not even offering to fistfight Perry had worked—Jonah had honestly believed it would—and he thought he had that Neanderthal figured out. Jonah’s fate had been decided, but by others, so there was only one thing he could do and that was to change that fate to be in his favor.
They cut the zip ties holding the door shut, opened the cell door, and threw it in as quickly as possible. One man tugged new ones tight so quickly it was as if he were in a competition. That was because he feared what was in the vicinity, as they all should. Then they all turned away, obviously having seen what was about to happen before. It was a relief that they didn’t enjoy watching someone get drained and die. Except they’d left the straitjacket on the creature. They had been afraid to take it off and for good reason. Molters were vicious and also incredibly strong.
